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Pros And Cons Of Abolishing The Electoral College

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The United States is a democracy, however not all votes from the people are technically counted for the final decision. How is this possible? The electoral college causes this to be so. Each state has a certain number of electoral votes, and if just 51% percent of the people in a state vote a certain way, all of that state's votes go towards that person. The electoral college is most definitely not fair, because every single person's vote should go towards the final decision of who rules them.
One scary thing to think about is what would be to happen in an election tie. In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would break it. The votes would be very unfair. The representative from Wyoming who represents 500,000 people, would have the same amount of decision in the vote as the Californian representative who represents 35 million people. Thats 70 times the amount of people being represented by the same number of people. Source: Bradford Plumer, ¨The Indefensible Electoral College,” Mother Jones, October 8 2004
Some people may say that it does not really matter which voting process is used because the winning candidate will stay the same either way. This is absolutely not true. If the US had used popular vote versus electoral vote, this would would have changed the results of multiple past elections including but not limited to; the …show more content…

There is no real need for these parties. Most people would not agree with all of one party's ideas. Each issue will cause much more than two opinions, which is why parties are not needed. Political parties are more easily abolished without the useless Electoral College. This is all stated by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., ¨Electoral College Debate: Election 2000: Its a Mess, But We've Been Through It Before,” Time, November 20,

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If the United States had multiple parties, people could vote for what party actually matches their political views. A popular vote could promote a multiple party system, and in the instance that no candidate gets more than 40% of votes there could be a “second

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In that case, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives.” And that, “...each state only casts one vote (Document F)…” Plumer expresses if the electoral votes are tied, then the voting will become more unfair because of the misrepresentation of state population in the House. Lastly, in the presidential election of 1876, the candidates were Hayes and Tilden. Tilden had won the popular vote with an advantage of 245,448 more than Hayes (Document G).

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Again in Document D, George Edwards says about the Electoral College system, “(I)t favors some citizens over others, depending solely upon that state in which voters cast their votes for president.” Though candidate must have 270 of the electoral votes to become president, if there is a tie than the top three candidates are taken to the House of Representatives where each state has only one vote, and they select the president. This particular part of the Electoral College shows absolutely no political equality. In Document F, Bradford Plumer says, “Because each state cast only one vote, the single representative from Wyoming, representing 500,000 voters, would have as much say as 55 representatives from California, who represent 35 million voters.” The fact that one representative has as much power 55 representatives is just one example of the inequality and how the power in the Electoral College system is not divided correctly.

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y Americans feel puzzled on whether they approve of the electoral college or change it all together. However, before the argument begins on which method would prove most beneficial to Americans, we must consider all the facts surrounding how the electoral college works. Each state, including the District of Columbia, receives one electorate for each of congressional delegates which includes both the house of representatives and senate. Most states, with the exception of Nebraska and Maine, adopted a winner takes all approach that uses the majority from each state to determine who all the its electors vote for. This becomes an issue when the popular vote, which is determined by looking directly at the number of votes each candidate received by the citizens themselves, and the electoral college do not match.

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This gives a vote from Wyoming more importance in the Electoral College than a vote from California, undermining the one person, one vote basis of democracy. b. If there is a tie in the Electoral College, the vote goes to the house where every state receives 1 vote. If a state is gridlocked, meaning that it has an equal number of electors voting for each candidate, it doesn’t receive a vote. This facet of the electoral college undermines democracy by giving each state a maximum of one vote, regardless of the number of people in the state.

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One of the United States’ fundamental beliefs is the idea that fair taxation with equal representation. Author of, “5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Electoral College”, Louise Gaille, elaborates, “In national representation, each state and population district receives equal representation, in either the house or the senate, and that allows individual voters to still have a say in what happens” (Gaille). The Electoral College was built on compromises the Founding Fathers made to ensure the equal ability for everyone to impact the decisions made in the country. Without national representation, states with smaller populations won’t have their votes as considered as the votes from larger states. For example, although Wyoming makes up about .18% of the population, they still control .56% of all electoral votes.

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Lastly, the Electoral College ignores the will of the people. There are 538 electors and over 300 million people in the United States and only 538 people get to decide who gets to be voted in. Is there a better way then the Electoral College for voting? This question is very opinionated because some people think we don’t need the Electoral College at all and other do. But, I think the Electoral College isn’t that bad of a way, because you wouldn’t want some uneducated adult that has no idea what they are doing decide who they want to run the country.

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Pate claims that presidential candidates would ignore “issues Iowans care about, particularly rural matters” (Pate). He asserts that abolishing the electoral college would harm these smaller states. However, in a majority-wins-all election, every vote is equally important. This cannot be said for the Electoral College currently, as it favors smaller swing states and ignores bigger states. Pate argues for equality, but fails to recognize that the current system does not fairly represent the entire country.

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“The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical”( Tara Ross "The Electoral College: Enlightened Democracy" 2004). Historically speaking, the forefathers intended for the Electoral College to protect democracy in the U.S and for the most part, it has done a nice job, socially, people really only want to change it when it leads to a result that they don't agree with, for example, this past election. The Electoral College doesn't, or in better words can't protect democracy if people don't get out and vote, Gregory Wallace of CNN reports that “55% of voting age citizens cast ballots this year… the lowest turnout since 1996”. The opponents of the Electoral College instead of talking about of how it doesn't work need to take a step back and consider, how can the Electoral College work if people don't get out and vote, something that they need to solve in the

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For instance, the weight of each vote in Wyoming is about four times more than that of each individual vote in Texas. This is because Texas, with a population of over 25 million, has 32 electoral votes, whereas Wyoming, with a population of 532,668, has 3 electoral

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The Electoral College is a process. The Electoral College is a number of people from the United States representing the states, casting votes for the election of the president and vice president. The Electoral College has 538 electors, 435 representatives, 100 senators and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. During the Electoral College each of the states would select electors.

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In 2020 around 33% of Americans didn't vote for a president according to a poll by NPR.Recently, there have been some proposals in congress to change the electoral college system, from a normal system to a popular vote system. There were many different proposals to change the electoral college in the early 2000s, but none of them were passed. Although some people see the electoral college as unnecessary, without it, Electing our next president would be unfair to the people and the state The Electoral College is the system that gives small and big states an equal vote in presidential elections, used by almost every state in the U.S, and without it, electing a president would be much harder and unfair to the state and people. The United States has a very important process to electing a president known as the Electoral College, and because of it, it gives small and big states the equal votes to be fair in elections.

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What would you think if a presidential candidate got over 2 million more votes than the other candidate, but still lost? Does that seem fair to you? Well that sort of thing is exactly what the Electoral College does. The Electoral College is the unfair voting system America still uses to pick their president that needs to be abolished and changed to a popular vote system. The Electoral College is the current voting system used in America to elect their president.

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Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to voting for president, the United States runs on an indirect democracy. This means that we do not directly choose our president; the electoral college is rather an example of federalism, both the Feds and the States are involved in the process. It is a collection of 538 votes that determine who the President will be: 100 senators, 2 per state, and 438 representatives, distributed by the population. These 538 votes in the Electoral College are divided among the states. Each state, no matter how populous or not, starts off with three votes.

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In terms of representation, this system is fair, but the delegates nominated by the people have a choice to vote for what their state or district has decided or not. There is also the popular vote which is the people’s direct vote for their choice. Even though there is a popular vote, it does not decide who gains presidency. Only the electoral college decides, which is by vote. This means that a candidate can be elected without the popular vote.

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